Maserati Racing Team

AMERICAN BRAD VAN LIEW JOINS MASERATI RACING TEAM IN 2012 TO
CONQUER SPEED RECORDS IN THE ATLANTIC

Italian sailing legend Giovanni Soldini has recruited an international crew of professional sailors to join him in Maserati’s ambitious new race against time. American Brad Van Liew has signed on as a key member of the team, specifically to contribute his expertise to the navigation and strategy of breaking speed records in the Atlantic in 2012.

Soldini and Van Liew are no strangers to the offshore environment, both having raced solo around the globe on more than one occasion. The two decorated sailors have tackled solo records in the past and endured the extreme environment of sailing stripped down speed-hungry sleds through the world’s most challenging conditions. Now, they will work as a team to push a 70-foot racing yacht to new levels of speed and performance.

The Maserati team will attempt to tackle four important North Atlantic records:

Cadiz (Spain)-San Salvador (Bahamas);

Miami-New York (USA);

New York-Lizard Point (UK); and

Fastest speed and longest distance covered by a single hull yacht in a 24-hour period.

These are all ocean courses monitored by the World Sailing Speed Record Council, the international body certifying the record times on the historic clipper routes.

“I am really excited to work with Giovanni and the entire crew to optimize the Maserati racing yacht for peak performance,” said Van Liew. “New challenges are what makes me tick and I relish the opportunity to engage in more great offshore sailing adventures.”

The challenge is being supported by Maserati, the principal partner whose name has been given to the boat and the Swiss bank BSI (Generali Group) as co-sponsor. Official suppliers to the challenge are Vodafone Italia and Boero Bartolomeo S.p.A. with Bulgari as the Official Time Keeper.

“Maserati is proud to support Soldini and his crew with a commitment to the latest nautical technology in an attempt to break major ocean records,” said Harald Wester, managing director of Maserati S.p.A. “This challenge resonates with the Maserati brand and the values we hold dear – passion, emotion, speed, adrenalin, innovation along with craftsmanship and an Italian identity.”

The Maserati team has already started training in Europe and plan to engage in their record attempts from January-April, 2012. The Maserati yacht is a 70-foot monohull optimized for speed. The boat competed in the Volvo Ocean Race of 2008-9 as Ericsson 3, winning 4th Place in that event. A comprehensive refit of the yacht has included performance enhancing steps, including a deeper the keel, new sails and all possible options to reduce weight.

Brad Van Liew is the only American to ever complete three solo races around the world. He recently won the Velux 5 Oceans solo race around the world aboard Le Pingouin. Giovanni Soldini raced in the same event, then known as the BOC Challenge and the Around Alone in 1994 and 1998, winning the event in 1999 with the highly publicized rescue of Isabelle Autissier in the remote Southern Ocean. The two sailors collectively have completed more than 5 solo races around the globe and more than 40 Atlantic crossings.

With the boat Maserati, the Trident marque is partnering Giovanni Soldini in this ambitious project. The confrontation with time, the emotions generated by speed, the adrenalin deriving from competition are of course all elements that have indelibly marked Maserati’s almost hundred-year history: from the first land speed record set by Bakunin Borzacchini in 1929 to the victories at Indianapolis in 1939 and 1940, the two F1 World Championship titles conquered by Juan Manuel Fangio in 1954 and 1957 and the FIA GT1 world title won by the Maserati MC123 in 2010.

However, Maserati, a company that has made innovation one of its strong suits, is by no means new to speed records on water too. As early as the 1930s, the Maserati brothers tested two paired 16-cylinder engines at sea and in 1955 a Maserati engine conquered five powerboat world championships. Subsequently, for 12 consecutive years from 1957 to 1969, Maserati eight-cylinder engines won 19 world, 4 European and 10 Italian titles in various categories. Maserati’s present commitment to Giovanni Soldini therefore represents a kind of return to the future for the Trident marque.

With the support of and participation in this major Italian sporting and technological project, Maserati is confirming its role as a global ambassador for the Italian excellence this country is capable of expressing. Maserati excellence displayed with passion every day in 65 countries around the world through successful products of the highest quality such as the Quattroporte, the GranTurismo and the GranCabrio, cars whose performance reflect on the road that expressed by Giovanni Soldini and Maserati at sea.

BRAD VAN LIEW

Brad Van Liew’s entrepreneurial spirit has seen him through successful business endeavors in aviation and sailing. As a professional sailor, Van Liew completed three solo circumnavigations, taking 3rd place as an underdog entrant in the 1998-99 Around Alone race, claiming victory in the 2002-03 edition of that event, and winning 1st Place in the VELUX 5 OCEANS race 2011 sailing Le Pingouin. He broke a world record by covering 345 miles in one day aboard his 50-foot monohull Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America. Van Liew has been awarded an array of honors including a US Navy Seamanship Award, various Communications Awards, and Sportsman of the Year from California Yacht Club. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California. For more information visit www.oceanracing.org.